


“I love you beyond paint, beyond melodies, beyond words...."

by ModernArt2012



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: And has Feelings, Future Fic, M/M, Otabek Paints, That's it, that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernArt2012/pseuds/ModernArt2012
Summary: Otabek has breadth requirements for his business degree and took an art class. There’s only one thing he can describe as art.





	“I love you beyond paint, beyond melodies, beyond words...."

**Author's Note:**

> Self indulgent. For Draco

Otabek reads over the term assignment then looks back at his professor. The same professor who has been hounding him about his “fake art”. Just because he doesn’t feel like lugging canvases and paint and brushes and all the other tools necessary to make traditional paintings across the globe and to the rink for practices. Perhaps if he was more daring off the ice he’d take a page from Yuri’s book and stage an accident with his skates. Or like JJ and fail to care and just continue on his own path and take the matter up with the Dean. But no. It was just a breadth credit, to show he was a well rounded student and having a prolonged fight with an arrogant professor wasn’t worth the 10% this was worth of his final grade. “To be clear, sir. You require three paintings. Made with real paint. Is the subject matter also already decided for us or is it up to us to decide what we are inspired by?”

 

The subtle dig is not lost on the professor, who turns scarlet in humiliation and rage - he’s been harping on not listening to authority about what to create in art, to follow one’s inspiration and other similarly “highly artistic concepts” for the entirety of term, and it feels good to throw them back in his face. The surrounding class breaks out into gleeful whispers. “No. Whatever inspires you.” It’s said through a clenched jaw and gritted teeth, and Otabek is suddenly glad that the grade is assigned by peer review and not by the professor. He’s popular enough with the class, so his grade shouldn’t suffer unduly.  

 

Because he knows what he’s going to paint. Attempt to paint. It’s just getting the subject to sit that’s going to be difficult.

 

* * *

 

The first scene is easy enough to find. Yuri, from that Grand Prix in Barcelona, in his black and pink costume from the Free Skate, one arm up as he rotates through a jump. The photographer got him in such clarity, with the lights shining so brightly off the sparkles and off the ice - it’s simple enough to work up from (for a given value of simple, paint is not Otabek’s medium by far) and Otabek is satisfied that he got the details right - especially the serene facial expression but fiery determination in Yuri’s eyes as he gazes momentarily down the barrel of the camera, challenge in the dark. 

 

The second is just as simple to pinpoint, a picture Yuri had sent over Insta, Yuri buried into Potya’s fur, eyes curled in grinning mischief and the hints of a wicked smirk peeking over Potya’s winter coat. It’s harder than the previous painting - all the hair, the way the colors smudge in the original photo, the sharp shadows from the backlight and Yuri’s hatred of flash. It’s so drab and dark in comparison to the first piece - greys and blues and blacks and browns and dirty dishwater yellow to deep vivid fuschia and bright whites and pale ice flashing - the dichotomy is pleasing to the eye. But it’s missing the middle ground - the bridge between the laser-focused champion and the playful teen. 

 

Which brings Otabek to the last piece.  There’s no helping it - Otabek has to ask Yuri in person to sit for him, to let him take pictures when he’s at practice to try and find his inspiration for this elusive last piece. Half of him thinks it should be something private and introspective, but that is the ice. Something fun and human - but the one with Potya. Something with Yuri’s eyes, because that could be a theme he could bullshit to his teacher about. 

 

“Why would you even take that shitty art class? You were undecided between that and the oral storytelling.” And of course Yuri would remember a single comment from four or five months ago. “Whatever, you can take photos to use as long as they don’t go beyond your possession.” That’s as good as carte blanche, and Otabek take photos when he has time - meaning between conditioning, practice, traveling, meals, working on the dry land version of his new programs. Basically Otabek gets a lot of shots of Yuri with food and on the train with his headphones in and once collapsed snow angel style on the ice. None of them are right - too much the champion, even though the one on the train where Otabek got Yuri’s reflection in the glass staring back in challenge is a beautiful piece. But it’s still not right. So starts the photos of Yuri at dance practice, face disgusted, or Yuri at home asleep under the blanket on the couch as his bruised feet soak in a tub of hot water and epsom salt. None of them are right. 

 

It only strikes Otabek as the perfect moment when they are climbing the unforgiving staircase to the ice rink, when Yuri looks back in his leopard print hoodie and leopard print sneakers, casting a long shadow and backlit by the sun, that this is the moment Otabek is looking for. Yuri’s eyes are bright and clear, the champion in transition, mischievous and sure. He’s halo’d and dark, punk and angel at once. He wants to fumble for his camera, to capture this moment and copy it faithfully but his camera died at the nightclub last night and he forgot to charge it. 

 

Still, the next day is a rest day and Otabek holes himself up in Yuri’s spare bedroom to paint. To cover up details and paint over. Pick up turpentine and wipe off paint, start again. Edit this detail and that detail and forever be unsatisfied. Finally, he gets something passable - something that  captures the essence of Yuri in a state where he is both the champion sure and steady and something untouchable but also the teen who is punk yet kind and wholly human. 

 

Otabek - by dint of not having time to do anything but flee for the airport when he’s done - gets to bow out of showing Yuri the final product. But Otabek knows he will one day, when he’s ready to face the truth he’s painted into those canvases - an aching kind of devotion to the hard angelic soldier who aims for the gold and the friend who teases and laughs and walks the same path as Otabek. Because somewhere in there is Yuri, who is friend and foe and everything in between and one day there will come a time they are both ready to face that truth. Otabek hopes it will be together. For now, he’s got a professor to show.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me on [ tumblr](http://modernart2012.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Please feel free to leave concrit! I greatly appreciate it!


End file.
